Status-Q

I had the honour of meeting Elon Musk briefly some years ago. Back then, he was just doing space exploration. There aren't very many people for whom you could write that sentence - even without the word 'just' - but for him, its inclusion is entirely appropriate.

Now, he seems to be doing... well... everything that's cool. I have since admired his orbital exploits, ridden in his cars, and, of course, bought a significant proportion of my purchases using Paypal - which helps pay for all the rest.

The latest product is apparently to be batteries - here's the new press announcement - but these are not your average AAs. They're wall-mounting.

At 10kWh, these could run a lot of LED lightbulbs for a long time. Especially if you're not also using them to recharge your model S.

They're designed to make it easier for solar-equipped households to depend less on the grid, especially by time-shifting the peak sunshine energy at noon to the morning and evening, when there's peak demand. That's not simply about being green: just a few weeks ago, visiting friends were telling us about the 'loadshedding' powercuts in Cape Town recently, where everybody got a scheduled two-hour outage each day to help cope with the insufficient power-generation capabilities in the country. This seems perfect for that, too.

Still, the next challenge Musk has to address is the really tricky one: the manufacture of solar panels which don't ruin the appearance of the building to which they're attached.

Apple recently released OS X Yosemite 10.10.3, which includes their Photos app - the replacement for iPhoto.

This is unlikely ever to become my normal photo-management and editing tool, but it does have some nice features, and it has more editing controls than you might at first realise:

Also available on Vimeo.

Tomorrow is the centenary of the start of the second biggest genocide in history.

Here's what I wrote about it ten years ago:

Who remembers the Armenians?

My wife's family, on one side, are Armenian. Her grandparents managed to escape the ruthless Turkish ethnic cleansing of 1915 by getting a boat to America, but most of the rest of their families were wiped out.

This is one of history's biggest and yet least-known atrocities, so it's refereshing to read Ben Macintyre's article What's the Turkish for Genocide?, which suggests that Turkey really ought at least to acknowledge its past before being allowed into the EU.

The question "Who remembers ... the Armenians?", by the way, was used by Hitler to reassure his generals that another holocaust they were embarking on would not be a long-term problem. It would be sad if any future dictators were still able to use the same reasoning.

The Norwegian Students' and Academics' International Assistance Fund have been making some brilliant videos to challenge the stereotypes that can creep into otherwise well-intentioned aid programmes.

Excellent stuff. The 'Who Wants To Be A Volunteer' one on their website is really nicely done, too!

Raises all sorts of interesting questions.

Many thanks to Simon for the link.

Very peaceful on Grantchester Meadows this morning.

John Naughton, interviewed by Tim Garton-Ash at the European Studies Centre in Oxford.

Holkham Beach in Norfolk is an amazing place. It's just vast.

Yesterday, the car park was packed, and the path from it to the beach a queue of people and dogs, yet when we got there and walked for just a few minutes, it looked like this:

A few more, and it looked like this:

(Yes, that's Tilly - you can click for a bigger version.)

Looking away from the sea, you get this:

And I'm fond of that, admittedly less exciting, view, because it features in the memorable closing sequence of my favourite movie.

Tilly absolutely adored it, and seemed to keep running, flat out, for about an hour and a half.

All in all, a most enjoyable stroll.

We're always amused by impressive-sounding descriptions which include sufficient qualifications to be almost meaningless. Rose just sent me this one:

"Lavenham is perhaps one of England's finest preserved medieval weaving villages"

Almost every word, after the first two, is a restriction. Let's read them backwards:

• We're looking at villages here, not cities, towns or hamlets.

• They need to be primarily associated with weaving.

• Medieval weaving, that is. Or perhaps medieval villages. In any case, other periods need not apply.

• Their character has been preserved.

• Rather well preserved, in fact.

• Only English ones, mind you. None of your Belgian weavers, for the moment.

• There may be more than one village meeting all of the above.

• Lavenham may be one of them.

• Perhaps.

Well, I think we can agree on that.

The Fairfield Horseshoe, from Clappersgate.

This is supposed to be an excellent walk, but I've never done it. It's on the list, perhaps when it's a bit less snowy!

In the grounds of Wray Castle, Windermere. I thought each of the main branches had different and interesting characters.

Click for a larger version